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en-usEngadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronicsCopyright 2018 AOL Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/14/microsoft-inclusive-xbox-avatars-could-arrive-spring/https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/14/microsoft-inclusive-xbox-avatars-could-arrive-spring/https://www.engadget.com/2018/03/14/microsoft-inclusive-xbox-avatars-could-arrive-spring/#comments

Microsoft announced last year that it was overhauling its avatar system and while the more diverse and customizable Xbox Live avatars were initially due out last fall, the company has kept us waiting. But a source familiar with Microsoft's Xbox plans has told The Verge that the new system will be available to Xbox Insiders for preview this month and is set for a wider rollout in April.

It's now easier to keep up with your Xbox gaming pals when you've ventured beyond the living room. After several weeks of public testing, Microsoft has launched party chat in its Xbox apps for Android and iOS. If you use Xbox Live, you can use this to your fellow party members through voice or text wherever you happen to be. That can be helpful if you want to keep up with an in-game raid while you're rushing home, or if you just want to leave a party channel open as a semi-permanent group chat.

You no longer need an Android phone if you want to join in Xbox party chats when you're away from your console -- Microsoft has introduced party chat to the beta Xbox app for iOS. If you've been accepted into the program (you have to sign up first), you can keep up with your teammates' voice conversations from your iPhone or iPad while you're racing home to join them in a multiplayer match.

Stephen "StepTo" Toulouse, a tech vet, humorist and author well known for his role in managing Xbox Live over the years has passed away. His brother Jeff Toulouse tweeted that "It is with heavy hearts that we announce the loss of our brother, Stephen Toulouse, @Stepto, this morning." A Microsoft employee for nearly 18 years, Stephen served as director of Xbox Live policy and enforcement until early 2012 and helped shape the company's response to issues online communities are still struggling to deal with.

Xbox Live keeps adding and updating features in response to its multiplayer community. Last year, the service added support for "clubs" along with improved friend-finding options. According to Xbox Live's Major Nelson, Live users will get a host of new tweaks today as Microsoft's gaming division adds quite a few new features to its console and mobile apps, including custom Gamerpics, the ability to stream your games with up to three friends and a way to tie a single controller to your login to make it easier to sign in and play. The Xbox mobile apps get a few additions as well, including new ways to look for groups and to browse the titles in your Game Pass subscription, and users can now create their own Killer Instinct tournaments.

Haven't given your Xbox Live avatar much thought lately? Neither have I, and that's probably why Microsoft is taking action on that front. Yesterday the company announced that the avatar system will get a major overhaul sometime in fall 2017.

Microsoft has kept its promise to add more backwards compatibility to the Xbox One, enabling owners to play select Xbox 360 titles on the new machine. But it's the console's Game Pass that shows the most promise: A Netflix-style monthly subscription service giving access to old and new games. While Xbox Live Gold members got early access last week, Game Pass is now live for anyone with an Xbox One.

Remember when we told you that Microsoft was launching its own Netflix-style subscription service for games? Well, thanks to Danny McBride, we now know that it's coming to an Xbox One near you on June 1st. As we reported previously, Xbox Game Pass will set you back $10/£8 a month, allowing users to download anything they wish from a library of over 100 Xbox 360 and Xbox One titles. The initial lineup looks fine, if unremarkable, featuring the likes of Halo 5: Guardians, Payday 2, NBA 2K16 and Soul Calibur II. While we know a handful of other titles coming to the service, the vast majority of the 100 plus game library still remains unknown.

As recently as January, we were told that Nintendo's awful friend code system for finding and adding buddies for multiplayer games would be no more. That made us hope a better system for adding Switch contacts was on the way. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime even told CNET, "There are no friend codes within what we're doing." It turns out that's not true at all, as the company revealed that friend codes are very much alive and well.

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aveshopfriendcodesgamingmiitomonintendonintendoswitchplaystationnetworkreggiefils-aimesupermariorunxboxliveThu, 02 Mar 2017 11:44:00 -050021|21871880https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/02/xbox-live-creators-program/https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/02/xbox-live-creators-program/https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/02/xbox-live-creators-program/#comments
It wasn't too long ago that Microsoft released an update that turned every Xbox One into a software development kit. Now, hobbyist developers will have a platform for publishing their wares on the console. It's called the Xbox Live Creator's Program.

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andrewparsonsbeambeambroadcastingbusinesschirscharlacreatorsupdategaminggdcgdc2017id@xboximaedagam3w1thz0mbies1nitindiedevelopersjamessilvajohnnyplatformsbiscuitrompmicrosoftskastudiosxboxxboxlivexboxlivecreatorsprogramxboxoneThu, 02 Mar 2017 10:20:00 -050021|21866790https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/24/twitch-will-let-you-change-your-username-every-two-months/https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/24/twitch-will-let-you-change-your-username-every-two-months/https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/24/twitch-will-let-you-change-your-username-every-two-months/#comments
Starting today, you can change your Twitch username. What's more, you can do it every 60 days, and, seemingly as a shot at Microsoft and Xbox Live, it won't cost you a dime to swap from "FluffyJungle9991" to something a that's easier to commit to memory.

Microsoft said it was about to supercharge Beam, and it's quickly following through on that promise. After a few weeks of beta testing, the livestreaming service's big 2.0 overhaul is now available to everyone. The most conspicuous change is what you'll see the moment you hop in. There's a revamped home page that can feature multiple streams and show more info about a broadcaster's communities. Also, you'll notice a revamped, HTML5-only player that touts better video-on-demand controls, playback at higher bitrates (up to 10Mbps) and higher resolutions (1440p at 60 frames per second, anyone?). However, some of the biggest improvements are under the hood.

Microsoft made a big fuss out of the Windows 10 Creators Update's gaming features, and it's nearly ready to start delivering on them... including some that have remained mysterious. The company has revealed that it'll start trotting out a largely unknown Windows 10 Game Mode as part of Insider previews "this week." The improvement won't be fully functional until later releases, but Microsoft has at last shed some light on what it is: it'll fine-tune your PC to speed up gaming performance. This mode should help both legacy Windows games (Win32) and modern titles (UWP), so you won't have to be picky about what you're playing to notice a difference. You should "soon" hear a lot more about how it works, Microsoft says.

Microsoft is getting its newly-acquired Beam livestreaming service ready for Xbox and Windows with a big new update rolling out today in beta. Beam's low-latency tech lets you rapidly interact with your favorite streamers, and even play along, compared to the more passive Twitch experience. It's improved the already-quick latency by five times, increased the max bitrate to 10 Mbps and now supports 60 FPS render speeds at up to 2,560 x 1,440 resolution.

Xbox's Games With Gold subscription service has come a long way. At the start of the generation, Games With Gold offered very few AAA titles, its game lineups paling in comparison to Sony's PlayStation Plus counterpart. Over the last couple of years however, Microsoft's service has seen a very noticeable rise in quality.

Broadcasting live gameplay to Twitch or Facebook isn't easy. It means setting up special capture software and navigating a mire of complicated bandwidth settings. Microsoft is trying to fix that: The next version of Windows 10 is going to integrate game broadcasting directly into the Xbox App. The streaming experience promises not only to be easy, but also to almost eliminate the communication lag between viewers and broadcasters -- but don't expect to use it on Twitch. Microsoft's game broadcasting tools seem to be designed specifically for Beam, the livestreaming service it acquired back in August.

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creatorsupdategadgetrygadgetsgaminggearmicrosoftmicrosoftsurfacesurafceprosurfacesurfacebooksurfaceevent2016windows10windows10creatorsupdatexboxxboxliveWed, 26 Oct 2016 11:14:00 -040021|21592320https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/06/xbox-one-preview-clubs-groups/https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/06/xbox-one-preview-clubs-groups/https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/06/xbox-one-preview-clubs-groups/#commentsClubs and Looking for Group features are being rolled out to Preview members on Xbox One today and then the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS and Android devices in the near future. Both features were originally announced during E3 2016, but now there's a chance to actually try them out in the wild.

It's always frustrating when you can't get your preferred nickname for any online service, and after nearly 14 years many of the good ones on Xbox Live are already taken. Worse, they might be tied to accounts that are no longer active, and are just waiting to go back into circulation. Microsoft freed up a cache of 1 million stale Gamertags earlier this year and back in 2011, which could become a regular occurrence. As a part of an update to its Terms of Service, the company is adding a requirement to sign in at least once in a five year period to keep an Xbox Live Gamertag associated with your account.

If you want to use the Xbox Live network to tell followers you're streaming Xbox One games on Twitch, there's just one way: Stream from the console's Twitch app. The problem is that the quality and options are very limited, since the Xbox One isn't exactly a TV production studio. However, Microsoft and Twitch have teamed up to make it possible to use Xbox Live when you're streaming from a PC using a capture card -- all you need to do is link your Xbox Live and Twitch accounts.

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avcapturecardsgamingmajornelsonmicrosoftnotificationsstreamingtwitchxboxlivexboxoneWed, 13 Jul 2016 04:57:00 -040021|21431033https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/13/new-xbox-live-features-include-clan-support-and-friend-finding-o/https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/13/new-xbox-live-features-include-clan-support-and-friend-finding-o/https://www.engadget.com/2016/06/13/new-xbox-live-features-include-clan-support-and-friend-finding-o/#comments
Microsoft is making it a good deal easier to find friends when you want to play a game online this fall. A new "clubs" feature is basically a system-wide clan feature that lets you group together all your friends you play with frequently. Another new feature, "looking for group," will let you put out an alert to your friends when you're trying to get a big Destiny game going. The last feature, "Arena," is aimed at competitive play and lets you find competitions going on around your favorite games.

Rumors are swirling that we could see more of the new Crackdown in just over a week's time at E3, but until Microsoft's media briefing you'll just have to make due with All Points Bulletin: Reloaded. The free-to-play online game of futuristic cops and robbers recently launched on Xbox One after a lengthy delay, and if you log in within the first month (or before its initial patch, whichever comes first), there are a few bonuses for you. In addition to weapon skins and a placard for your avatar if you play for 10 hours, there's a special weapon (the Fireworks Flare Launcher) and vehicle (Mikro JC14 "New-Cross") in store for everyone, regardless of play-time.

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allpointsbulletinapbreloadedavdavidjonesfreetoplaygamingonlinereloadedgamesxboxxboxlivexboxoneFri, 03 Jun 2016 23:33:00 -040021|21389331https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/16/microsoft-gamertags/https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/16/microsoft-gamertags/https://www.engadget.com/2016/05/16/microsoft-gamertags/#comments
Have you been coveting an Xbox Live gamertag that someone else happened to nab before you years ago? You may well be able to claim it yet as of May 18th, when Microsoft plans to release a million different gamertags from "abandoned" accounts.

When Microsoft announced that it was working with developers to expand Xbox Live to play nicely with other platforms, it was Rocket League developer Psyonix leading the charge. Gamers immediately asked whether that meant Xbox One owners could soon smash into PlayStation 4 buddies, but Sony has yet to confirm whether that's something it wants to enable.

Sony Worldwide Studios' Shuhei Yoshida told Eurogamer at GDC 2016 that "policy and business issues" were likely the biggest obstacles, rather than technical demands -- a message that Psyonix vice president Jeremy Dunham has now mirrored. Turns out, the studio has already connected its Xbox One and PlayStation 4 games and is now waiting for all of the relevant parties to decide on how things should play out.

If you missed out on last fall's Xbox One sales, you're about to get a second chance. Microsoft is kicking off an Xbox Spring Sale on March 20th that will once again lop $50 off the Xbox One's price. And yes, that applies to any bundle -- the 500GB offerings start at as little as $299, and even that pricey The Division 1TB bundle will fall to a more reasonable $349. A handful of games (including Halo 5) will see a $20 price cut, too. The hardware deals will stick around "for a limited time," so you may want to act quickly if you're eager to play and don't want to wait until June to see what E3 will bring.

On top of offering networking compatibility with other gaming platforms, Microsoft had another treat for developers at GDC this week: An easy way to create their own game tournaments with Xbox Live. Think of it as an evolution of Xbox Live's multiplayer matchmaking. The aptly titled Xbox Live Tournament Platform, which will support both Xbox One and Windows 10, is clearly meant to make Microsoft an even bigger player in the burgeoning esports market. To that end, it's also teaming up with esports companies FaceIT and ESL, who will use the platform for upcoming tournaments. The first titles to support the tournament platform should arrive by the end of the year.